“I didn’t suddenly find you anything. I always knew you were . . . cute.” His lips curl as though it’s the first time he’s used the word in all his eons, and it tastes too saccharine in his mouth. “You’ve never not been . . . that, to me. And no. That’s not the reason.”

“Then what—”

“I spent years killing your kind. Then, at the ball, I exchanged a few words with you. And for the first time since I was turned into a slayer, I realized that you were not as soulless as I had been taught. You were rational. You had feelings. You thought of more than just your own desires.” He crosses his arms, unapologetic. “So I decided to do my own research.”

“Which would be . . . ?”

“You seemed wise. And interesting. But at the start, I didn’t mean to spare you. I just wanted to observe you. To learn more.”

“And?”

“I observed. Always from afar. And there was a lot of you to study. I learned that you didn’t kill indiscriminately. That you helped weak people carry heavy bags. That you shared your wealth and defended innocents and offered to walk your neighbor’s dog when she broke her hip.”

Oh my God. He’s talking about Mrs. Cole and Pumpkin, in the 1930s. “He was a very cute dog,” I say, numb.

Lazlo is so unreadable, I cannot tell whether he shares my opinion of Pomeranians. “I watched you, and your simple, mundane acts of kindness. They were small, but they made all the difference for those who received them.” He pauses for a moment as if waiting for me to protest, to roll my eyes, to scream at him for spying on me for centuries. But I have nothing to yell about, and he continues, “I had been raised to . . . I was told that vampires were a detriment to this world. But it was obvious that you made others’ lives easier. And looking at you, I couldn’t help but think that the world was better. Because you were in it.”

“But you still tried to . . .” Kill me, I want to say. Because he did. For centuries. Over and over.

“After I formed my opinion of you, I focused on the rest of your bloodline. Two other women who, like I said, don’t hurt innocents. I decided to spare them, too. But after that . . .” For the first time, I sense some hesitation. As though what comes next, he’s not too comfortable with. Something harder to admit. “I missed you. Watching you. Observing you. I just . . . liked you. It was a new feeling for me, wanting to know someone. Wanting to be known by them as I truly am. So I tried to do that.”

“You tried to . . . what?”

“To talk to you. To explain that I no longer wished to kill you.”

“When?”

“In Italy. Then in Derbyshire, during the nineteenth century. In Turkey, a few years later. Thailand and Indonesia. A few more times, too.”

I remember. Or, more accurately: I remember him coming after me in all those places. Of course, I thought that it was part of a slayer’s hunt. Not that he was trying to . . . to what? Get to know me better? “You stabbed me. As recently as Berlin.”

His eyebrow lifts. “And you impaled me in Colombia. Aethelthryth, for people like us, that’s the equivalent of pinching. And after a while, hunting you became the only way to be close to you. I wanted to spend time with you, but I could only do it as the slayer tasked with bringing an end to your bloodline.” He looks out the window. “I gave myself permission to show myself to you once a decade. And the remaining time, I just stuck around. Made sure you were okay. Not that you haven’t proven over and over that you can take care of yourself, but . . .” He shrugs again, and for the first time since becoming a vampire, I understand something very important.

I may not need to breathe, but I still need to be able to breathe. And right now, I just can’t.

“Basically, you had a crush on me,” I summarize, my voice raspy.

After several heartbeats, he nods. “I suppose so. It wasn’t . . . sexual. Not at the start. But then . . .” He bites the inside of his cheek, bashful. “I liked you a lot. As a person. As a woman. You were beautiful. And whenever we were close, despite the fact that violence was involved, you felt . . . good.” I wonder if I’m imagining it, the slight flush dusting his cheeks. “I don’t know you well, Aethelthryth, but I know you better than you do me. And yesterday morning, even after I woke up and couldn’t remember anything, everything I felt for you was just . . . there. And it still is.”

It still is.

He can’t possibly have said— No.

Because: “You’re a vampire slayer.”

“In retirement.”

“So, what . . . what would you like to do? Now that . . . What would you . . . ?”

His throat works. “It’s your decision to make, Aethelthryth.”

Oh my God. It is.

It really is.

And somehow, despite how incredibly messed up all of this is, it’s the easiest decision I’ve ever had to make.

“I . . . I think you have an advantage. And you know things about me. That I . . . don’t. About you, that is. And it’s only fair that . . .” I fist my hands at my sides, feeling dizzy. Slowly, surely, an idea coalesces in my head. “It’s only fair that I spend time with you. And that we get even.”

He freezes like what I just said detonated a million bombs in his brain. But then he nods gingerly as if not to spook me.

“Maybe we could . . . Tomorrow night, for instance? Meet? And talk? But I’m going to need to leave now. I’ve bled a lot, which means that I’m going to need to feed soon, so I’ll have to find someone who—”

“I will help,” he blurts out.

I nod. Laugh a little. “You have a lead on someone very shitty?”

“No,” he says. But he turns around to open a drawer and pulls out a sharp, gleaming knife. Before I can grasp what he’s about to do, he closes his fist around it and lets the blade slice a deep cut across his palm. “But I’d be happy to provide you with what you need.”

My spine, together with the rest of my nerve endings, liquifies.

I feel my entire body tremble.

Try to make myself consider the impossibility of it: A slayer. Offering nourishment to me. A vampire.

Then the scent of his blood hits my nostrils, and all I can do is run to him.

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Chapter 14

We bump into several sharp corners before finally finding a flat surface—which happens to be the tiled floor of his kitchen. I hold Lazlo’s palm against my mouth, latch tightly on to the wound he created for me, just for me, and take deep, thick gulps as I climb on top of him to straddle his lap.

It’s like he’s my own prey—one I’ve hunted down and subdued and captured. One I’ve decided to keep for myself.

From the way the amber of his irises disappears into dark pupils, he seems to have no objections to that, but to be certain that we’re on the same page, I roll my hips against him and watch him arch and groan like he’s in pain.

Yup. The very same.

Sex and blood have always lived in two separate buckets for me. Pleasure and nutrients. Luxury and necessity. Different, isolated, never to meet. But this . . . It’s good. The taste of Lazlo’s blood filling my mouth is delicious, vital sustenance, an addling drug that I’m already addicted to. It’s never been this way for me, and the reason hits me as I take another shameless deep pull: This is the first time I’ve drank blood that was freely given to me.

It’s such a turn-on, I moan into Lazlo’s hand and listen to him do the same. My whole body vibrates with pleasure at the simple thought of it—that this man wants me to be alive, to be healthy, wants to offer me something for the simple reason that he cares about my well-being.

He doesn’t mind that I’m taking. In fact, he’s saying things in Hungarian that mostly boil down to fuck and yes and please. More.

But he was injured, too, and I’m drinking a lot. I force myself to stop, pull back from his flesh, and say, “I don’t want to take too much—”